


Meet Me In The Dream Of This Hard Land

by adrenalin211



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 14:45:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adrenalin211/pseuds/adrenalin211
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wasn't nobody on the island more like him than Kate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meet Me In The Dream Of This Hard Land

**Author's Note:**

> This is quite funny because I don’t...watch Lost! But this is for lowriseflare, who LOVES these characters and wrote this amazing ficlet for a show _she_ doesn’t watch and I wanted to a) reciprocate and b) congratulate her on incredible life happenings. :) I did my homework, though, and watched a few eps to try and get their flavor. This fic contains Kate/Sawyer snippets through seasons 1-4. HUGE thanks to leigh57 for the beta and the posting help, and to lowriseflare for the mark-up and highly necessary canon assistance. Also, the title comes from a Bruce Springsteen song, so thank you to The Boss as well.

At first it’d been about what he could salvage from the plane. About polar bears and water bottles and every man for himself. Survival.

She’d just been somethin’ pretty to watch while he sat back and waited for rescue. Nice beach. Fine breeze. Little bit of liquor. He’d reckoned it coulda been worse.

And everyone’d been all rice and beans over Jack but what Sawyer had never figured about the man was why a person’s gotta fix even the stuff that ain’t broken. The only thing that’d _really_ irritated him like a starchy shirt-collar was the fact that she’d followed the doc around like a lost puppy lookin’ for a home. The hell with it, he’d told himself; he don’t care.

Wasn’t until the truth came out about the prisoner when he’d known. And he’d studied her freckled face long enough to see she wasn’t like that. He hadn’t known the why, what or how of it, but he’d figured she knew a thing or two about gettin' justice.

From then on she’d been a bit more than eye-candy and he'd have to live with that.

Wasn’t nobody on the island more like him than Kate.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

She doesn’t know where Jack’s gone off to, but she’s changing Sawyer’s dressing when he wakes up; he’s grimacing like it hurts something bad.

“Sorry,” she offers. “Does this hurt?” She’s pressing down where Jack told her to and he starts squeezing his knuckles together like instinct.

“Would Locke kill a boar?” he manages, and she can’t have imagined him smiling up at her, all delirious. She tries to concentrate on the bandage but his eyes are something you can’t steer clear of.

His breathing settles some when she finishes with the gauze. He rolls over a bit, his eyelids catching weight.

Sawyer’s about to fall asleep again and she’s making herself comfortable in a chair when she hears him.

“Stay with me, Freckles. Man’s gotta have somethin’ nice to wake up to.”

Instead of answering she rests her chin on his good shoulder, taking in the feel of him, muscle and strong pulse.

Kate thinks about the day Claire found the message bottle washed up on shore, the water behind her eyes and the emptiness of the land.

She’s not going anywhere.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_

“You got any more of that?” she asks, nodding at the can of pinto beans that fell from the sky.

“Comes with a price,” he drawls, but he’s moving over to make a spot for her on the log, extending his spoon. No argument.

Kate already has a can back in her tent.

The way he looks at her makes her think she’s the only person on this island he cares about.

She grabs the spoon and scoops a mouthful, chewing as she situates herself next to him. “You wanna tell me what you said to him?” she says, swallowing.

She'd asked him about this before, but Sawyer'd fallen far short of an acceptable answer, by her book.

Of all the roles she’s filled here, she’s surprised mediator is among them. Sawyer plays ignorant.

“What’d’ya mean? ” He’s getting all angry now and it’s the only emotion she’s ever seen him wear comfortably.

She throws him her best don’t-give-me-that face and looks over at Hurley, who’s sulking in the sand, staring out at waves and an expanse of blue nothingness. “Who do you think I mean?”

He looks to where she’s directing. “Oh for god’s sake, Freckles, you're on that again? Everyone’s always comin’ to me when the tiniest speck of sand’s outta place, lookin’ for someone to blame.” He’s shaking his head. “Let me tell you somethin’. I ain’t the crazy one.”

“Crazy? Second time you used that word.” She furrows her brow. There’s a long pause, crashing of waves and leaves blowing behind her, and Sawyer gives her that face he sometimes gives when he knows you aren’t gonna let him alone ‘til you get what you came for.

“He asked me for meds,” he spits out. “Ones I don’t got anyway.” Sawyer snags the spoon out of her hand and stands up. “So you can take your pretty little interrogation act and ask someone who gives a damn.”

Kate stands up, leans toward him, like a secret. She smells the fresh sweat of him, observes messy scruff and dimples. He seems to get more agitated the closer she gets. “So Hurley thinks he’s crazy?”

He sighs, like he’s doing some big favor by talking. “Yeah.” He shifts the weight of his body from his right leg to his left. “Thing is, he ain’t. He just wants off this island as much as the rest of us." Sawyer points to his temple. "All in his head.”

“Maybe that’s the point,” she says. “You should tell him that. Bring these.” She hands him back the beans.

“Are you kiddin’ me? He don’t look to you like he’s had more than his share?”

Kate grimaces. “Peace offering,” she suggests.

She catches his eyes, quizzically stares like she can see right through, and before she can blink he’s walking towards Hugo, all long muscle and exterior swagger. Like he’s king in these parts and you’d better know that, or else. But watching him walk makes her heart kinda coil and wonder.

The thing about Sawyer is he’s all talk. She’s scratched the surface once or twice now and found nothing but real underneath.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

She crawls out of her cage when there ain’t nobody watchin’ and he’s whisperin’ at her to go back, but she’s stubborn and she don’t change her mind once he wants her to.

She breaks into his cage and instead of runnin’ like hell away she’s staying put since he won’t follow. But he pictures them finding her here and he’s scared like a kid in the dark about what they’d do to her right in front of him.

Just yesterday she’d gotten his heart beatin’ all fast just by being there, all legs and naked back, and he figured then that it’s about time he stop lyin’ to himself.

Now she’s kissing him and her mouth is hot and he feels throbbing where her hands land.

Truth is, Sawyer could go off about his man-needs and how that’s why this feels so damn natural, but there’re about ten other belles on this island he could’ve sweet-talked if he’d wanted to.

Ain’t no explainin’ how this spit-fire here has crawled under his skin and burrowed there.

Now they’re peeling off clothes faster than he thinks possible and she’s got him more hot than he’s ever been in this jungle. He’s got her wrists 'round iron bars and their sweat’s mixing. Heavy gasps. He pulls away to look at her, lifts her up.

Her breath hitches when he gets inside. She moves ‘round ‘til she’s good and settled and he’s gonna lose control in seconds if she don’t stop with that.

“What's the rush, Freckles?” He’s spreading his hands up her back, been dreamin’ about touching her like this all week. "We're still prisoners tomorrow."

Their lips break apart and she’s lookin’ at him like he matters and her body is movin’ in his like she _can’t_ stay still, even for a second, so he closes his eyes and lets it happen.

Later she’s in his arms sleeping and he’s thinking how, if she don’t wanna go another round before sun-up, he’d be content just sittin’ here with the crickets, fingers twined ‘round her hair.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Wasn’t until she said she ain’t pregnant that he realized he’d been carrying the idea around on his back and gettin’ used to it there. They coulda been yellow suburban houses and porch swings and baby cradles and they coulda seen the life he could never have back home.

 _Thank God,_ he’d said, instead.

Now he watches her walk away with hurry in her steps, like she got what she came for, and maybe she has.

 _Christ, Kate,_ he wants to say. _Don’t leave me._

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

“I’d feel a hell of a lot better if it were a few hundred pounds lighter,” the pilot says, and before she knows it Sawyer’s getting her attention, coming in close and whispering to her, soft, about unfinished business.

She can’t process quick enough but he’s kissing her, she’s kissing back and then he’s jumping out the helicopter like it’s nothing. Like plummeting hundreds of feet, landing miles from shore, and sacrificing his rescue is something he does every goddamn day.

 _Dammit,_ James.

She glances over at Jack; he’s looking out the other side and averting his eyes, best he can.

Boats, rescue and the real world had been on her mind lately, but then he jumped and that all blew to the wind because now she pictures herself jumping right in after him and if Aaron weren’t somewhere out there motherless and crying, she’d probably do just that.

The propellers whistle and the engine sputters like it’s about to go down.

Jack’s yelling over the sound something about safety devices, but she’s not listening. She peers over the side where the speck that was Sawyer has disappeared into the distance.

Hurley spots the boat.

Kate inhales. Tries to concentrate on the things that she has.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Sawyer’s swimmin’ up on shore, breathless. Juliet’s there and when she asks what he’s doing he makes like the current didn’t take him most of the way back. “Decided to take a dip,” he says, which ain’t lyin’.

“Whatcha celebratin’?” he asks when he sees the rum at her feet, almost gone, but she’s staring at him like things gone wrong.

“I’m not celebrating,” she whispers, and he don’t know Blondie worth a damn, but he considers himself good at reading faces. Sawyer looks to where she’s lookin’, far past the breakers, and his heart sinks like a fishin' hook when he sees the smoke mixin’ grey into the sky.

“That our boat?” he manages. His body’s burnin’ all over and her eyes are bluish and he don’t know a pack of smokes from dynamite right now.

“It was,” she corrects.

When he finally sleeps, he dreams: grown man hidin’ under a bed, Kate’s blood seeping between the cracks in the wood.

_______________________________


End file.
